Australian-headquartered OceanaGold Corp has launched commercial production at its Haile gold mine in the United States.

The company will now focus on improving productivity at the South Carolina mine. It said operations continue to progress as planned, with mining of sulphide ore at two of the mine’s pits.

OceanaGold chief executive officer Mick Wilkes said the operation was back on track following the disappointment of the second quarter.

“Process plant throughput has improved and is close to design rates, while grade and recoveries are in-line with our expectations,” he explained.

“Over the course of the next several months, we will continue to ramp-up operations and focus on fine-tuning of the process plant for incremental improvements.”

Wilkes added that reaching commercial production was a major milestone for the mine.

“It was through the hard work and dedication of our workforce and unwavering support from our shareholders, local stakeholders and partners that we are at this pivotal point only less than two years after taking ownership of this world-class asset located in South Carolina, United States,” Wilkes said.